also @ TechSpot: Intel SSD 520 Series 240GB Review

XP and Vista to get new media player

By

April 17, 2006, 2:00 PM EST

Microsoft has plans to spice up the music player in Windows Vista. The idea of the software enhancement will be to offer better synching with portable devices, whilst also making it easier to scroll through long libraries of music. The software will also be highly integrated with Urge, a new subscription and download music service co-developed by Microsoft and MTV Networks which is intended to be an iTunes killer.

With the new media player, consumers will be able to "reverse sync," meaning they can send content from a digital device to a PC. That will allow users to transfer pictures taken with their camera phone, or music purchased on a wireless device.

Another change is the ability to alter protected music and video files to change their quality level. With the new software, protected Windows Media files can be converted to smaller file sizes for playback on mobile devices, where there is less need for very-high-quality video files.

Related Stories

No tags on this story

User Comments (6)

Post a comment
DragonMaster
on April 17, 2006
3:04 PM
The idea of the software enhancement will be to offer better synching with portable devices, whilst also making it easier to scroll through long libraries of music.
In other words, the media library will be even more complicated to use than before?

Is Winamp the only easy to use player?

If you want to add a single file or URL in WMP and iTunes, you need to search everywhere to find the button... Or there's just drag&drop but I HATE this. I don't even remember how to use these players...

Julio
on April 17, 2006
3:48 PM
I have been a WinAMP user since I can remember, but believe it or not the average user does not have a problem (do they notice at all?) with bloated media player software. Media Player in XP is not that bad, but I would refuse to use it regularly for audio playback anyway.

No big surprises here, where Microsoft integrates a 'new' feature into their next-generation OS, which is the only way to gain strength versus competing products that have been available for a while. I guess you could see it as unfair competition, competitive advantage, or pure competition, the later assuming the new program developed by MS is indeed better than the others out there.

DragonMaster
on April 17, 2006
7:17 PM
I have been a WinAMP user since I can remember,
All I remember is that the first time I used Winamp it still wasn't free, and half of the time, after I pressed the stop button, I had to erase the INI file to be able to play something again.

but believe it or not the average user does not have a problem (do they notice at all?) with bloated media player software.
Sure! They click the file to play it.

crossfire851
on April 18, 2006
12:01 AM
WMP 11 wow *sarcasum*

a 4 year update should be a little more

JK

This aswome and I like to see what they will do with the new OS.

OUTLAWXXX
on May 9, 2006
1:35 AM
i don't know what the top two people are wining about i use windows media player for everything and ive never had a problem playing songs or movie or video files and it's FREE! guess u just have to learn how to use it or something?? which shouldn't be hard to do. and winamp my uncle used to have that and it really has no real advantage over media player just accept that microsoft is the maker of this player and that it's good.

DragonMaster
on May 9, 2006
10:47 AM
i don't know what the top two people are wining about i use windows media player for everything and ive never had a problem playing songs or movie or video files and it's FREE! guess u just have to learn how to use it or something?? which shouldn't be hard to do. and winamp my uncle used to have that and it really has no real advantage over media player just accept that microsoft is the maker of this player and that it's good.
It has lots of advantages. Look at all the plugins.

Browse more commented news

Follow TechSpot

Feeds & More Newsletter